A little bit of Eltham in the stories of Edith Nesbit, writer, socialist and resident at Well Hall House

The old Woolwich Road, 1909

Now I have set myself the task of reading the stories of Edith Nesbit and looking for Eltham.

She lived in Well Hall House from the late 19th century into the 20th and those in the know reckon they can spot the references.

I never read her books when I was growing up and have to confess that I only came to know of the Railway Children which is one of her most famous books when the film came out.

So to rectify this omission and to see if the descriptions of the house the children lived in and the countryside they played around matches the Eltham of the late 19th century I shall trawl her books.

And before someone mutters “he clearly needs to get out more,” I reckon it will fulfil a couple of goals.

Well Hall House, date unknown

First it will involve reading  some children’s classics and it will allow me to wander the lanes of Well Hall, and the fields stretching north to the woods and south to the Palace sometime between the 1890s and the 1920s.

And in all of this I shall be aided by the wonderful pictures and descriptions of Eltham from R.R.C.Gregory’s history of Eltham, published in 1909 and still a must for anyone wanting to know the history of the area.*

I doubt that there will always be an exact match and not all of the books will contain any references but perhaps enough to add to what I already know about both her home and the area over a century ago.

And  she was far more than just a little old lady who wrote children’s books.

Her marriage appears to be what we might today describe as an open one and she adopted two children from her husband’s relationship with another woman who was employed as their house keeper.

She was one of the founder members of the Fabian Society, a member of the Social Democratic Federation and wrote and spoke regularly on socialism.

Amongst her friends were H.G. Wells, Bernard Shaw and the Webb’s, all of whom visited the house in Well Hall.

She was also a member of the local Labour Party and it was here she met Tommy Tucker an engineer on the Woolwich Ferry., who she married three years after the death of her husband Hubert.

Edith Nesbit

All of which fits nicely as like Edith, Hubert and Tommy I was also a member of the same local Labour Party.

Woolwich Labour Party was formed in 1903.  At that time the Woolwich constiuency took in Woolwich and Eltham, and even when it was split between Woolwich East and Woolwich West for the 1918 General Election the Labour Party took the decision to stay as one party.

So when I joined in 1966 aged just 16 I was walking with Edith, Hubert and Tommy.

And one of her books has already begun to reveal that old Eltham.

This is the Red House published in 1902, and named I guess after the home of William Morris.  But as the story unfolds it is clear that the house is Well Hall House.

It was demolished in 1928 after a fire, but the opening chapters recreate the property down to the ivy which covered part of the back,  the gardens and the interior.

Now there may be some images of the inside of the place, along with plans and descriptions but at present all I have is the Red House.

But that is an exciting start.

Pictures; The old Woolwich Road, circa 1909,  from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers,http://gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm
Well Hall House, from The Edith Nesbit Society,http://www.edithnesbit.co.uk/ and Edith Nesbit from Wikipedia Common

Home thoughts of Ashton in the 1970s, ..... part 1 washing up on Raynham Street

Whiteacre Road and the corner of Raynham Street

Now if you have to start off your life together at the tender age of 23 and 21 respectively then Ashton in the mid 1970s was a pretty good choice.

We had begun by renting just off the Old Road opposite Grey Mare Lane Market and when we started on the property ladder it seemed natural to start looking around there.

But the houses were not available and bit by bit we moved up Ashton Old Road and finally in 1973 crossed the municipal border and washed up in Raynham Street.

A two up two down down, close to the town centre and it even had a small Corporation allotment directly opposite.

Of course the downside was that I worked in Wythenshawe and travelled on public transport which meant that during the winter I only got to see Ashton in the daylight at the weekend.

Raynham Street

But that still left plenty of time to explore the town, the surrounding districts and to venture out into the countryside.

Not that this is some nostalgic trip seen through a rosy coloured perspective, but just an occasional piece reflecting on what the town was like for two young people who had been born at opposite ends of the country.

Raynham Street was just what we wanted and for me it was just a matter of exchanging one terraced house for another .

There was also a  sense of community which appealed to us.  We both came from close knit areas, me from south East London and Kay from a mining village in the North East, and having done our three years of rootless living in south Manchester student land we were ready for something different.

We got to know our neighbours, found our favourite stalls in the covered in market and having transferred our membership to the Ashton Labour Party made new friends.

Some were like us, first time buyers straight out of grim multi occ properties in Withington, Fallowfield and Longsight and others could count their family generations back to an earlier Ashton.

We regularly attended meetings in the old PSA building with Glyn and Hazel, introduced our families to the delights of Stamford Park and the Sycamore and occasionally managed to entice friends out of the city to come and stay.

Penny Meadow & Whiteacre Road, 1972

I could never quite understand why they thought it was such an adventure, to us it was a comfortable and easy place to settle.

And even now on those rare occasions I come back the place still has an effect on me.

It begins as the tram pulls up just short of the town centre and extends as I wander through the market place and up to St Michael’s.

That said I can’t quite get my head around the new retail park and I miss the Arcadia along with the PSA building and wonder when the mural to the jubilee in 1977 painted on the gable end of the butcher’s shop on the corner of Whiteacre and Egerton Road vanished.

All of which smacks of the nostalgic trip I promised not to take.

Instead I shall ponder for a future post on the Ashton I remember from the 1970s.

Pictures; Raynham Street, date unknown, t03175 and t03175, and Penny Meadow at the junction with Whiteacre Road and Crickets Lane, 1972, t01388, courtesy of Tameside Image Archive, http://www.tameside.gov.uk/history/archive.php3

Looking for the first carol singer in Chorlton-cum-Hardy ...and other Christmas traditions

As titles go it is a bit daft even for a history blog, and I guess ranks with Carol Singer bites dog and the carol singers who started singing in Easter.

But it sets me off on a story which touches on Christmas in Chorlton across the centuries.

Mr Wittaker sells Christmas, 1906

And what better than this picture of Mr. Whitaker and his two assistants outside his grocery shop on the corner of Beech Road and Chorlton Green in the run up to a Christmas long ago.  

The date is 1906 and judging by the adverts for “CHOICE NEW CURRANTS AND SULTANAS [for] XMAS”and the boxes of Mincemeat we must be in late November or December.

Standing in front of the shop by the open door in Thomas who was 40 years old when the picture was taken and to his right is his son “Charlie” and away in the corner is Mr Fox who the caption tells us was about to become the manager of the Stanley Grove shop.

Now it says something about the concentration of people around the green that old Thomas Whittaker could feel it made business sense to open another shop just round the corner and off the green, and later had another store I am told on Ivy Green Road.

Choice Xmas Currants, sardines and Bovril

But the captions and the photograph do not quite fit.  If the date is indeed 1906 then the figure to the left of Thomas Whitaker cannot be his son Charlie who would have been just ten years old, and while the Fox family lived at 19 Stanley Grove there is no evidence that they were running a shop at any time between 1903 and 1911.

Singing on the green, 2022

All of which is becoming too complicated.  So I shall to reflect on the picture postcard of Beech Road on a summer’s day over printed with “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” and go back to carol singing.

Before the green was stolen by Sam Wilton and turned it into his private garden in the early 19th century it had been the centre of many village activities.

Then after it reurned to community use in the 1890s, there will have been a return of events of which one will have been centred around Christmas.

Just what shape that event took has yet to be discovered.

But for now the revival of carol singing around the Christmas tree set against the backdrops of the Horse and Jockey, the Lych Gate and the Bowling Green Hotel beyond has become a popular highligh of the festive season. ..... is back.

Join us on Christmas Eve at 6.15.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; Mr Wittaker sells Christmas, 1906, from the Lloyd collection carol singing on the green, 2022, courtesy of Peter Topping and Christmas Eve on Beech Road waiting for the carol singers, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Christmas Eve, Beech Road waiting for the carol singers, 2022

A Beech Road that has now passed out of living memory

Now I have a soft spot for Beech Road, it is after all where I have lived since 1976. 

And for years I wondered why the pavement widens briefly almost opposite Reeves Road which was of course to accommodate the big tree.

What I also like about the photograph is that it is a view that has long since passed out of living memory and part at least had not changed in perhaps 80 years.

I can be fairly sure that it dates from 1907 when the houses on the left were built and no later than 1909 when the estate of Beech House on the right was sold and the big house demolished.

Beech House had been the home of the Holt family from the 1830s until the last of the family died in 1907. By 1909 the eastern side of the garden running along Barlow Moor Road had been acquired by the Corporation, its wall demolished and a stretch of it was about to become the tram terminus.

The remaining stretch would in time be developed to include Malton Avenue the Palais de Luxe cinema opened in 1915 and the parade of shops.

But now on that winter day it was still possible to see the outline of Beech House and beyond the row of terraced houses to the south were the Bowling Green Farm and the village.

Picture; Beech Road circa 1907-1909 from the Lloyd collection

A demonstration …… and the search for a story …. Piccadilly 1943

Sometimes you come across an image that sets you off on a search for answers.

And this picture taken in 1943 in Piccadilly  is just one of those.

The caption is enigmatic to say the least, just, “Piccadilly Catholic demonstration, educational reform 1943”

I can’t get an exact date and none of the placards reveal much as to why so many Catholics assembled in the centre of Manchester at the height of the last war.

The Manchester Guardian failed to cover the event, and I have yet to trawl the local papers.

But this was during the discussions and the Parliamentary debates about what became the 1944 Education Act which “raised the school leaving age, transforming education into a continuous process from nursery to adult and aimed at suiting all talents” *

And while the Government was intent on retaining church involvement in education there arose the issue of funding for new denominational school buildings to replace many that were too small, too old and no longer adequate.

The cost of which was very high and could only be achieved by Government funding.

The White paper of 1942 had observed  “that the Churches with a financial problem greater in extent and no less urgent than that in respect of senior children. This is a problem which they have shown themselves quite unable to meet in recent years and which they are less than ever likely to be able to meet after the war.

51. If large numbers of children are not to be deprived of healthy and decent school conditions to say nothing of equal educational opportunities there is no disguising the fact that, unless a considerable number of voluntary schools are to be brought to an end and replaced by new provided schools, some further assistance from public funds must be found towards the maintenance and improvement of the premises, where such improvement is possible. 

Discussions carried on in recent months with the many interests concerned have satisfied the Government that there is a wide measure of agreement that voluntary schools should not be abolished but rather that they should be offered further financial assistance, accompanied by a corresponding extension of public control which will ensure the effective and economical, organisation and development of both primary and secondary education”.**

All of which alarmed some in the Catholic Church and led to protests including one held at The Hippodrome in Salford on September 12th 1943, which the Manchester Guardian reported “an audience of 2,500 called by the Roman Catholic Parents’ and Elector’s Association passed a resolution demanding the provision of public funds of school buildings where Roman Catholic children can be instructed in accordance with the wishes of their parents”.***

The issue was resolved but that is for another story.

In the meantime I wonder if our Piccadilly protest was linked to that meeting.

Answers on a postcard.

And answers there have been, with a promise from Lawrence Gregory to offer up more information on the issues surrounding the protest.

And Lawrence also pinpointed the event to October 10th, 1943 which was a Sunday, commentating that the demonstrators came from across the North West making up a protest of 50,000 on what was a "beautiful sunny afternoon".****

All the more remarkable given the travel restrictions and difficulties due to war time rail services and that "thousands of Catholics from this Diocese were away on active war service".

Added to which I have Bill Sumner to thank for correcting me for suggesting the demonstration occurred in Piccadilly Gardens, "they are actually on the bomb site behind the gardens where hundreds of buildings were burnt out or destroyed by the services to prevent further spread of fire due to incendiary bombs. 

The Piccadilly Gardens were surrounded by concrete air raid shelters as seen in the background and vegetable gardens for food rations instead of flowers".

Location; Piccadilly, 1943

Picture; “Piccadilly Catholic demonstration, educational reform 1943” m07352, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*The Schools, Manchester Guardian, December 19th, 1943

**White Paper Educational Reconstruction, 1943 pages12-13, https://www.education-uk.org/documents/official-papers/1943-wp-educational-reconstruction.html#03

***Roman Catholic Schools White Paper Protests September 13th, 1943, from the Almanac, 1944

****Henry Vincent, Bishop of Salford, 1943

Well Hall in the 1920s nu 1 ........... catching the train and watching out for the cows

A short occasional series on Well Hall in the 1920s.

Now I washed up in Eltham in the spring of 1964 and for two and half years made the daily  train journey back to New Cross and Samuel Pepys School which continued until I switched to Crown Woods.

I didn’t like Samuel Pepys over much and the trip from Well Hall to New Cross and back was pretty much the best bit of the day.

Even now I have fond memories of seeing the woods above out house come into view ast thetrain took that final bend and came into the station.

The trains were always packed but there was something about knowing you were coming home to Well Hall.

And I suspect Mr Jefferson may have shared that feeling, so here are some of his memories of the same station just 40 or so years before I used the station.

They are taken from the book he published in 1970.

“The railway station was called simply ‘Well Hall’ when we came and the platforms were not so long as they are now.  

A workman’s ticket cost 8d return to London and early workers making their way past the tumbledown ‘Well Hall’ which is now the Pleasaunce would frequently be hindered by cows coming up hawthorn-hedged Kidbrooke Lane and turning in at the wide gate in Well Hall Road.”*

Location; Well Hall

Picture; the railway bridge over Well Hall Road, 2014, from the collection of Chrissie Rose

*The Woolwich Story, E.F.E. Jefferson, 1970 page 202

When they took my railway station ...........

Now, as a rule I don’t object to change and even I could see the logic of building a new railway station yards from the old one and calling it Eltham.

That old familiar entrance, circa 1960s

In the great scheme of things the coming of the motorway and the loss of the bus terminus beside the station made perfect sense.

But a little of my youth vanished when Well Hall Railway Station was demolished.
More than that, no one told me.

I had left from that wooden platform in the September of 1969 for a new life in Manchester, and while I regularly returned home during the following two decades I was not prepared for the day I alighted from what I thought was the wrong station, with the wrong name, on the wrong side of the road.

The new bridge, 2013

I should of course have been warned by the conversation at the ticket office in Charing Cross when my  request for a single to Eltham Well Hall was met with a stony look and a sarcastic comment about not keeping up with news, which was a tad unfair given that my subscription to Railway News had lapsed the month before.

Only the intervention of the nice lady buying a season ticket for Welling saved the day.

Off on a jolly, 1966

Even now on those occasions I go home I never feel quite right walking through the brick and concrete building and yearn with a bit of silly nostalgia for the wooden railway station of my youth.

Location; Well Hall

Pictures; Eltham Well Hall Railway Station & the High Street circa 1960s courtesy of Steve Bardrick, the railway bridge over Well Hall Road, 2014, from the collection of Chrissie Rose and off from Well Hall, 1966, from the collection of Anne Davey